Webb Bill

Here's an article from the Huffington Post that Noah sent me about the initiatives Webb is starting up!

Jim Webb stepped firmly on a political third rail last week when he introduced a bill to examine sweeping reforms to the criminal justice system. Yet he emerged unscathed, a sign to a political world frightened by crime and drug issues that the bar might not be electrified any more.

"After two [Joint Economic Committee] hearings and my symposium at George Mason Law Center, people from across the political and philosophical spectrum began to contact my staff," says Webb in a statement to the Huffington Post. "I heard from Justice Kennedy of the Supreme Court, from prosecutors, judges, defense lawyers, former offenders, people in prison, and police on the street. All of them have told me that our system needs to be fixed, and that we need a holistic plan of how to solve it."

Webb's reform is backed by a coalition of liberals, conservatives and libertarians that couldn't have existed even a few years ago.

Webb's bill calls for the creation of a bipartisan commission to study the issue for 18 months and come back with concrete legislative recommendations.

[...]

Webb couches the effort in fairly straightforward terms. "Let's start with a premise that I don't think a lot of Americans are aware of. We have five percent of the world's population; we have 25 percent of the world's known prison population," Webb said on the Senate floor when introducing the bill.

"There are only two possibilities here: either we have the most evil people on earth living in the United States; or we are doing something dramatically wrong in terms of how we approach the issue of criminal justice."

For the full article click here

This brings up a lot of questions for me, mostly about reform v abolition. What I do find incredibly encouraging is how many people (and politicians!) from all different backgrounds and places in the political spectrum are acknowledging the extent of the flaws in the prison industrial complex. Thoughts?

From the Sentencing Project

Dear Friend:

Yesterday, U.S. Senator Jim Webb (D-VA), took a bold step toward a more fair and effective criminal justice system. He introduced a bi-partisan bill with Senator Arlen Specter (R-PA) that would create a blue-ribbon commission to conduct an 18-month review of the nation's criminal justice system and offer concrete recommendations for reform.

"America's criminal justice system has deteriorated to the point that it is a national disgrace," said Senator Webb. "With five percent of the world's population, our country houses twenty-five percent of the world's prison population. Incarcerated drug offenders have soared 1200% since 1980. And four times as many mentally ill people are in prisons than in mental health hospitals."

We agree with Senator Webb's assessment of the criminal justice system. Since his election in 2006, The Sentencing Project has been working with Senator Webb to provide information and analysis on sentencing and drug policy, along with recommendations for reform.

We commend Senator Webb for his leadership on this issue, and look forward to working with his office, and other leaders in the House and Senate to advance sentencing reform, examine racial disparity and improve the juvenile justice system.

You can help The Sentencing Project continue to advocate for a more fair and effective criminal justice system by making a contribution to our work today.

Every day, support from individuals like you is making a difference in The Sentencing Project's work to change the way Americans think about crime and punishment.

Thank you.

Sincerely,
Marc Mauer
Executive Director

Senator Webb speaks about Prison Reform

January 1, 2009

Editorial

Sen. Webb’s Call for Prison Reform

This country puts too many people behind bars for too long. Most elected officials, afraid of being tarred as soft on crime, ignore these problems. Sen. Jim Webb, a Democrat of Virginia, is now courageously stepping into the void, calling for a national commission to re-assess criminal justice policy. Other members of Congress should show the same courage and rally to the cause.

The United States has the world’s highest reported incarceration rate. Although it has less than 5 percent of the world’s population, it has almost one-quarter of the world’s prisoners. And for the first time in history, more than 1 in 100 American adults are behind bars.

Many inmates are serving long sentences for nonviolent crimes, including minor drug offenses. It also is extraordinarily expensive. Billions of dollars now being spent on prisons each year could be used in far more socially productive ways.

Senator Webb — a former Marine and secretary of the Navy in the Reagan administration — is in many ways an unlikely person to champion criminal justice reform. But his background makes him an especially effective advocate for a cause that has often been associated with liberals and academics.

In his two years in the Senate, Mr. Webb has held hearings on the cost of mass incarceration and on the criminal justice system’s response to the problems of illegal drugs. He also has called attention to the challenges of prisoner re-entry and of the need to provide released inmates, who have paid their debts to society, more help getting jobs and resuming productive lives.

Mr. Webb says he intends to introduce legislation to create a national commission to investigate these issues. With Barack Obama in the White House, and strong Democratic majorities in Congress, the political climate should be more favorable than it has been in years. And the economic downturn should make both federal and state lawmakers receptive to the idea of reforming a prison system that is as wasteful as it is inhumane.
Originally from the New York Times - here